For Ratan Tata, these are strange days. India’s greatest living businessman is
coming to the end of a two-year swansong.

After a 50-year career at India’s largest private company, including 21 as its
chairman, on New Year’s Eve he will scuttle off into the Mumbai sunset,
handing over the reins of a huge conglomerate to Cyrus Mistry, the
44-year-old son of the group’s biggest shareholder.

For a man whose reputation has been forged by a string of bold, cross-border
deals that have transformed Tata from a mainly India-focused company into a
global enterprise employing 450,000 people, it is perhaps no